Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny.

JOSHUA MURAVCHIK's treatise calling for America to fulfill its destiny by "exporting democracy" has added fuel to the spirited debate over America's purpose in the post-cold-war era. The continuing ambiguity of U.S. policy in Iraq has further sharpened the question of what America should do in other people's countries. (What, if anything, should Washington do to depose Saddam Hussein or to establish an autonomous Kurdish state?) The debate is not new. It is rooted in the protracted dispute between interventionists and non-interventionists, "idealists" and "realists," and combinations of these slippery camps, each claiming a harmonious blend of realism and the American dream.

Muravchik presents a clear and detailed case for an updated Wilsonian vision. He believes that America should export democracy all over the Eurasian land mass and to the uttermost parts of the earth, and that this mission will serve our national interests and fulfill our moral destiny. He believes that a world hungering for freedom is ripe for democracy. "Democracy in China and the USSR may not be easy to achieve, but it is not much more farfetched than the idea of democracy in India or Japan had been at one time." In blunt fact, it is much more farfetched. India had a century and a half of British rule and Japan had Douglas MacArthur.

Going beyond Henry Luce's American Century, he foresees a "Pax Americana unlike any previous peace, one of harmony, not of conquest ... by virtue of the triumph of the humane idea born in the American experiment." He asserts that rich and powerful America has the political, economic, and moral resources to do the job. It also has the tools-foreign aid, the Voice of America, and the National Endowment for Democracy.

Few will take exception to Muravchik's view that we are an idealistic people who wish all peoples could enjoy the blessings of liberty. But many will take exception to his idea of American exceptionalism-that we have a unique responsibility to make the world over in our own image.

Muravchik's beguiling ideals keep bumping into uncomfortable realities, including the limits of ideology, the perils of crusades, and the irascibility of human nature.

William Graham Sumner said: "If you want war, nourish a doctrine," noting that doctrines driven by crusades become "frightful tyrants." Obviously, evil doctrines like Aryan supremacy lead to evil consequences, but seemingly benign doctrines like "manifest destiny" can also be dangerous. Is it not arrogant to attempt to impose democracy on the people of another sovereign state in the absence of an occupation statute?

This doesn't mean that America cannot help to nudge history in a humane direction. U.S. foreign policy since World War II has done precisely that. Perhaps the single most telling contribution to freedom and human dignity has been our strategic-arms policy that prevented nuclear war and eventually forced Gorbachev to surrender both his medium-range missiles and Eastern Europe.

Muravchik overestimates the potential for democracy, not only in China and the USSR, but also in the Third World. He seems to see Asia, Africa, and Latin America through Wilsonian lenses. During my visits to some sixty Third World countries, I have seen little to suggest that democracy as we know it is about to take root. In most of the countries that he lists as democratic-India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Brazil, Botswana, and many others-the fledgling institutions for translating popular will into policy are fragile, and human rights are frequently violated. Their political culture is characterized by kinship groups that have little sense of responsibility for people outside their group. Corruption is rampant. Hardly fertile soil for pluralistic democracy.

Muravchik fails to make the crucial distinction between nation-building and state-building. A state can be quickly established by military conquest or even by fiat. In contrast, building a nation-a cohesive people with a common historical memory-takes generations. Most states in the world are not nation-states. They are artificial political structures attempting to rule diverse tribes and classes that have conflicting customs and interests.

The first task of any government is to govern, the second to govern justly, the third to govern democratically. Few Third World regimes are capable of the first two tasks, much less the third. To expect too much is to invite disillusionment and cynicism.

Muravchik may not suffer from the illusion of American omnipotence, but he may have a more serious illusion, that of American virtue. As states and peoples go, America has many virtues. But one of its virtues is, or should be, humility-a "city on a hill" serving as a quiet example rather than a noisy preacher or imperious crusader. George Will has called people who hold Muravchik's views "imperial conservatives" who "want America to do for the world what Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was supposed to do for America: fix it."

A more modest appreciation of what America can do in the vast external world is prompted not only by observable realities, but by the Judaeo-Christian understanding of human nature and history. Rejecting this tradition, Muravehik sides with the rational idealists who dream of a new world order, and against the historical realists who reject all religious and secular utopian schemes and note that Wilsonian expectations were not ratified by subsequent events. These realists insist that their achievement is limited by man's dogged resistance to drastic reconstruction. With this recognition of "original sin," they argue that perfect justice, freedom, and democracy are not universally achievable, though approximations of these lofty goals are not beyond human grasp.

Mr. Lefever is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of Ethics and United States Foreign Policy (University Press of America).